


Forgiveness

by Mersheeple



Series: Hearts&Cauldrons Prompts [20]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Afterlife, Gen, Happy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:54:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25292770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mersheeple/pseuds/Mersheeple
Summary: Severus Snape enters the Afterlife and sees people who may actually forgive him for...everything.
Series: Hearts&Cauldrons Prompts [20]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1805746
Comments: 16
Kudos: 35
Collections: Hearts and Cauldrons - Daily Prompts!, Hearts and Cauldrons Discord Members, Severus Snape Lives!





	Forgiveness

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LadyHeliotrope](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyHeliotrope/gifts).



> Thank you for the prompt...I promised a Happy Ending too...how did I do? <3

“Hello Sev.” The world he had opened his eyes to was bright white and echoing. In front of his eyes was a shadowy delineation that moulded and shaped itself into his childhood friend.

“Lily.” His voice was hoarse and harsh but only a whisper as he stared at her. She had waited for him. She had waited for him in spite of everything. She nodded at him and smiled slightly.

“What have you done Sev? What did you do?” She shook her head, smiling sadly at him. He had been her world for so long that the disappointment in her tone broke his heart and, if he weren’t dead, he would have wept.

“I did what I had to do, I did it for you Lily.” She was his mountains, his trees, his earth, and sky. She took up his every vision then, bursting apart in a parody of fireworks that turned into birds and coalesced into a mountain before shape-shifting again into his friend from so long ago.

“Sev, look at me. I’m just a girl, just a woman, just one person. Please, take me off the pedestal Sev. I’m not that person. I’m not whatever you have me in your head to be. Please Sev, look at me. See _me_.” Severus looked at her properly then, really looked at her for the first time in more than twenty years. She was, as she said, just a girl, just a woman. He could barely recall the colour of her hair, the cheeky upturn of her lips as she teased him, the smell of her hair the first time they hugged, the way she cribbed off him in Potions, the way she helped him perfect his charms. He could see her as just a person now. It almost scared him.

“Lily…I kept him safe, I kept him safe as well as I could. I did what Albus asked. I did it all for you.” He reached out for her but his hand passed through her hair and she smiled sadly.

“We’ve already had words with Albus. How he could hold my death over you for so many years I will never know.” He felt the goose bumps rise on his skin as her eyes flashed fire and ice, an avenging angel before him. She leaned down and kissed his cheek and it served only to make him shiver.

“Lily, it’s what I deserved. What I did…what I said…I’m sorry…I am so so sorry…” The tears were falling fast now and he felt himself sob as she wrapped her arms around him, a warmth in his heart a contrast to the coldness of her skin.

“Sev, I forgive you. I forgave you a long time ago. It was just words. And oh, Sev, you paid for them a hundred times over. Severus Snape, I forgive you. Forgive yourself. You kept our boy safe all these years. I forgive you.” He looked to her then and she smiled sadly, her eyes filled with tears and he felt a strange wash of emotion that he wasn’t sure was his or hers.

“How can you forgive me? You never forgave me! No one would forgive me…” Severus looked at her incredulously and then noticed as a black bird peeled away from her before landing a short distance away and then coalescing into someone else he knew. James Potter.

“Snape. I…I know you hate me. And I hated you. But I’ve seen what you did for my boy. And I know that you did not have to. I…” The black haired menace with the hazel eyes that tainted his nightmares and had looked at him with hate so many times and Severus was surprised to see no hatred there. The figure held out his hand and spoke words he never thought he would hear from any of the Marauders, especially the one who had not had a chance to grow up.

“Thank you.” Severus was in such shock that he had held out his hand and shaken James’s before he even thought about why he shouldn’t. It felt slick, warm, and too much. It was a vile feeling that burned through him before dissipating in a wash of light. When he opened his eyes, he was alone with Lily again. She smiled, a creepy, ghastly smile that made her eyes turn their beautiful green and then flash back to the black he had first seen when she appeared to him.

“Sev, do you remember when Mum and Dad took us to that play? The one you said was for girls? We went for my birthday…the year we got our Hogwarts letters. What was it called?” She smiled at him again and he shivered before he looked away and murmured the name of the play with a smile on his lips.

“Phantom of the Opera. You loved that girl’s dress…” Her laughter was no longer the tinkle of bells he was used to in his memories but now it was the sound of a fork scraping on a cheap plate, a noise that had always annoyed him, more than the noise of nails on a chalk board.

“And you loved the Phantom. He wore black and hid in the shadows. It’s how you have lived your life Sev. Well, I want you to stop now. And Sev…’think of me fondly when we’ve said goodbye’…” She faded away, the humanity vanishing from her as she became the trees, the sky, the clouds, the stars, and the night sky. The last thing to fade was her smile and her eyes and Severus stared until the last minute, watching his friend disappear into nothing but the landscape. He tried to step towards where she had gone and felt someone tugging him backwards. Someone or something. He could hear a voice behind him and he turned to search for it.

“Then leaf subsides to leaf, so Eden sank to grief. So dawn goes down to day, nothing gold can stay…” He closed his eyes and blinked, the strange smell of copper and dirt and dust assaulting his nostrils. He groaned in pain, feeling a bubble in his throat gurgle softly and the girl kneeling by his side whipped round to look at him.

“Sir? You’re back? You’re alive…? Oh God…Professor Snape, we won. Voldemort is dead. I was coming here to take your body to be buried but…I don’t have to now do I?” He tried to answer and his throat burned and bubbled. Her eyes widened and she leapt into action, drops of dittany causing his skin to hiss and pop and as it sealed back together. He tried to gesture to his pocket but everything seemed heavy and strange. Somehow, she seemed to understand and reached her hand into his pocket, pulling out the vials of Blood Replenishing Potion, Anti-Venom and Phoenix Tears. She helped him to drink the potions, dripping the Phoenix Tears into his neck wound. He closed his eyes, exhausted, but alive.

Severus Snape would continue to live. He had to live. Lily had forgiven him. Now he could learn to forgive himself. And maybe someone would help him.


End file.
